The Letter

[halloweenjack]

1. Comment on this post.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters whose name starts with that letter and post their names and your comments on these characters in your LJ.

mdg1 gave me "A".

1. Aaron Stack, aka Machine Man, Mr. Machine, X-51. Spun off from Jack Kirby's 2001 Marvel comic book series in the 70s, Kirby's original series only lasted eight issues, but the character has been brought back in numerous revivals and appearances in other books, most notably Ellis and Immonen's Nextwave. The sole survivor of a military robot research program whose other subjects were terminated after suffering massive identity crises (no, really), Aaron battles against his own shaky self-image as much as against the U.S. Army, who sees him as a loose end to be tied up. Occasionally, he comes off as a bit of a jerk; when he's at a party and a woman that he's met is going on about how groovy robots are, he rips off his human face--showing a mass of circuitry and sensors underneath--and asks her what she thinks of him now. Robot pride, fleshy ones!

2. Annika Hansen, aka Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One, from Star Trek: Voyager. The most blatant piece of fanservice in the history of the Star Trek franchise turned out, against all odds, to be the second-best character in the series IMO (after the holographic Doctor), leapfrogging over Janeway et al. in terms of her character arc. Even though Jeri Ryan (who became a character in the drama of Barack Obama's Senate race)was hired primarily as eye candy--she had to be sewn into her skintight catsuit every day (bathroom breaks were apparently quite the event)--her character's struggles to establish an individual identity after having spent most of her life as a node in the Borg Collective made for some meaty drama. Ryan and Robert Picardo, who played the Doctor, worked especially well with each other, and the episode where Seven absorbs the Doctor's program and Ryan does her best Picardo imitation is utterly hilarious.

3. Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias. I hesitate to say too much about this character, because I think that there are possibly still some people on my flist who haven't read Watchmen. It's really too bad about Bubastis.

4. Arkady Darell from Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov. Fifty-five years after the book's publication, she's still one of the best teenage heroines in SF, for my money. A circle has no end, folks.

5. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. The mentor who was almost too perfect in the first books in the Harry Potter series reveals his flaws and mistakes--and in the process becomes more believable and more human--by the end. The scene in Half-Blood Prince where he's drinking the enchanted water, and suffering horribly, is unbelievably heartbreaking, and the "King's Cross" chapter in the last book may be my favorite chapter in the whole series.

Special Bonus: Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2. Yes, I have a massive crush on a videogame character. Her scenes with Dog are almost worth the price of the game in and of themselves.

Comments

[mary-mayhem.livejournal.com]

Hit me.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

The letter J.